Tuesday, October 29, 2013

I was recently asked to help out on a short film doing a particularly weird, creepy, gory character makeup. The only problem was, I wouldn't be available for the duration of the shoot to apply and remove the makeup each day. The solution I worked out was to make a flexible silicone copy of the actor's face with all the "makeup" applied, that he could wear as a mask. Did that sound confusing? Let me try it again. The actor wore a mask of his own face, but gory. Make more sense?

I took a lifecast of the actor's face by pouring melted clay into the mold we made of him, and was able to carve the wounds and...weird stuff directly into it.

Then I molded that and painted in a few layers of a soft silicone (so that he would be able to emote somewhat through the mask).

Some paint...

Some slime (which was actually just more silicone so it would be totally solid and non-sticky)...

Tie on a couple elastic straps, and he's good to go!

It's not the best method, mind you, but for four evenings of work, it works pretty well.